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Football season is officially underway and college football is no doubt king in Columbus. But
professional football — which opens its season this week — also has ties to the city.

The American Professional Football Association originated in Canton in 1920. In 1921, Joseph
Carr, manager of the Columbus Panhandles football team, became president of the association and
established headquarters in his native Columbus.

The Panhandles had the distinction of playing in the association’s first professional football
game against the Dayton Triangles.

Carr operated the association, which in 1922 changed its name to the National Football League,
from two different Columbus houses before setting up shop in a Downtown office at the Hayden
Building, 16 E. Broad St., which years later would be home to the well-known Marzetti
Restaurant.

From the 11th floor of the Hayden Building, Carr managed the NFL through its early years,
developing many of the standards that are still practiced today, including the NFL draft. He
ushered the NFL from its original 14 small-town teams — five of which were in Ohio — to a
well-organized league with teams in most major cities.

It also was at the Downtown building where Carr met with coaches of the Chicago Bears and the
New York Giants to create the arrangements and rules for the first official NFL Championship Game
in 1933, the first year the league was split into Western and Eastern divisions.

When Carr passed away in 1939, the headquarters for the league moved to Dayton, but Columbus
would always remain an early, crucial home for the cultivation of the sport of professional
football.